298 Memoir on the Geology of the [Oct. 



milate those mountains to the Alps*. Therefore the Himalaya must 

 have been heaved up at a period posterior to that when the Western 

 ghauts were elevated : these last containing not a trace of organic 

 remains in the rocks which form them, while the former abound in 



them. 



Elie de Beaumont admits the greater antiquity of the Malabar ghauts 

 over the Himalaya chain ; but he conjectures, by the direction of the 

 ghauts being parallel to the Pyreneo-Appenin system, that they may 

 probably belong to his sixth revolution of the surface of the globe. 

 The passage, in which he expresses this perplexity, is worth transcrib- 

 ing, to show of what importance it is to establish the association, and 

 the geological position of the laterite. 



" Vouloir suivre ce systeme jusque dans 1' Inde paratrait peut-etre 

 abuser de la faculty des rapprochemens : cependant je crois devoir 

 fair remarquer que la chaine des gates sur la cote du Malabar semble 

 se cohordonner a la direction, dont je m' occupe. La grand faille, k 

 laquelle parait du Pescarpement occidental des gates, en elevant Ie 

 plateau du pays des Maharattes, du Deccan, du Carnatic a eleve dm 

 meme tems, le grand depot argille-ferrugineux de laterite, qui forme 

 les points plus eleves de ce plateau, ainsi que le montre la coupe des 

 gates donnee par M. Christie. II est a, regretter que ce depot de la- 

 terite, qui couvre dans 1' Inde de si vastes etendues, n'aie, jusqu'a pre- 

 sent, offert aucun fossile, et ne puisse etre rapporte avec certitude a 

 aucun etage geologique determine : mais on pent toujours remarquer que 

 tant qu'on n' aura pas indique d' autre chainef qui produisse sur la 

 laterite 1'erTet mentionne cidessus, tout conduit k voir dans les gates 

 la ehaine la plus recente de la presqu'ile occidentale de 1' Inde, dont 

 elle est en meme tems le trait geometrique le plus prononce !" 



Then he says in a note, that the Himalaya are more recent than the 

 ghauts, and the Andes more recent than the Allaghanys of America. 



"We see, by what Beaumont says, that he suspects the laterite to be 

 the equivalent of those rocks deposited during the period that inter- 

 vened between the deposition of the chalk, and the tertiary beds. But 

 fossil remains being the only sure guide in determining the ages of these 

 formations, and none hitherto having been found in the laterite,, the 

 question must still remain sub judice. Besides, we must remark here, 



* A -writer in the Bulletin des Sciences Natu relies, concludes that the Dehra Dun is 

 analogous in formation to the Molasse of the Alps ; and Dr. Falconer is of the same 

 opinion. — De la Eeche, Geological Manual. 



t " With regard to this part of this passage, to show that there are other chains, hav- 

 ing different direction from the Malahar ghauts, on the summits of which we see the late- 

 rite as an overlaying rock, we may quote some of the branches of the Vindiya range, 

 where the laterite overlays either basalt or sandstone ; and also many sandstone hills on 

 the Northern Circars : and yet the Vindiya chain has a different direction from the Mala- 

 bar ghauts. 



